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thewayneA stingray is the nickname of a piece of equipment used by the FBI for surveillance. They were after an identity thief, a guy who was running a gang that was stealing people's identities in order to file false tax returns and steal the refunds. Fairly clear-cut type of crime. The defendant was using a Verizon cellular data card for connecting his laptop to the internet to perpetrate his crimes.
The stingray is a fake cell tower. You fire it up and it captures cellular traffic, just like a normal cell tower, and it logs the information and then passes it on to a real cell tower. There's some debate about how the stingray was used: it can intercept all cell data, in this case, internet data. The FBI maintains that it only kept header information and discarded all information for anyone who was not the suspect. The ACLU and the defendant's attorneys say that the FBI did not properly disclose how the stingray worked, nor the fact that it gathers all cell information in the area, to the judge. Obviously the defendant wants all information obtained from the stingray, which would be the basis for some search warrants, thrown out.
Lots of interesting issues. The thing that I find the most amusing is that the trial is taking place in Phoenix, which is where I am, at least until tomorrow afternoon.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/gov-fights-stingray-case/all/
The stingray is a fake cell tower. You fire it up and it captures cellular traffic, just like a normal cell tower, and it logs the information and then passes it on to a real cell tower. There's some debate about how the stingray was used: it can intercept all cell data, in this case, internet data. The FBI maintains that it only kept header information and discarded all information for anyone who was not the suspect. The ACLU and the defendant's attorneys say that the FBI did not properly disclose how the stingray worked, nor the fact that it gathers all cell information in the area, to the judge. Obviously the defendant wants all information obtained from the stingray, which would be the basis for some search warrants, thrown out.
Lots of interesting issues. The thing that I find the most amusing is that the trial is taking place in Phoenix, which is where I am, at least until tomorrow afternoon.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/gov-fights-stingray-case/all/
